Two members of the Cook County Board took the first step Tuesday toward creating a countywide land bank to handle the abundant supply of vacant, abandoned, tax-delinquent and foreclosed homes and commercial properties within the county. Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Commissioner Bridget Gainer, D-Chicago, proposed a resolution at Tuesday's board meeting to establish an advisory committee tasked with exploring the formation of a non-profit redevelopment authority for the county.

A resurgent U.S. housing market has created an unforeseen land shortage that could take the shine off an otherwise promising year for homebuilders. To keep up with demand, builders who neglected to buy land during the downturn must now pay top dollar for prized city-center locations. Their profit margins are likely to be squeezed this year, even as house prices rise. "Builders waited so long to buy land that, when the recovery happened, it was very strong and they got...

A land bank that would acquire, manage and repurpose vacant and abandoned properties in Cook County is one step closer to reality. Two months after its formation, an advisory committee appointed by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is recommending the county board create a countywide land bank, make it a quasi-governmental group and provide it with startup funding of $1 million so it can move aggressively. "If created, this would be the biggest land bank in the...

Every housing market is unique, but a new study on Cleveland's recovery efforts may help guide local groups seeking to repair neighborhoods hard hit in the Chicago area and elsewhere by the financial crisis. The research, commissioned by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, looked at almost 39,000 foreclosed Cleveland residential properties that were sold by banks and subsequently may have changed hands between 2000 and March 2013, and tracked what...

The Cook County Board president's office announced the members of an advisory committee that will help the board determine if and how a land bank could be structured to deal with distressed lots around the county. The advisory committee is expected to complete an interim report for the board by late November and finalize details about how a land bank would work among stakeholders by year's end, according to MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning...

The Cook County Land Bank Authority on Thursday approved the hiring of Chicago banking executive Brian White as its first executive director. White, 44, received a three-year contract at an annual salary of $150,000. He most recently worked at Charter One, charged with implementing the bank's community reinvestment strategy. Previously, he was executive director of Lakeside Community Development Corp., a nonprofit community development organization. The...

The Cook County Board on Tuesday approved the formation of an advisory committee to investigate the establishment of a land bank, and MarySue Barrett, president of Metropolitan Planning Council was named as chairman of the group. The committee will investigate how a land bank could be structured and financed and target areas for a concerted program. Land banks allow entities to take possession of unproductive, distressed properties through direct purchases, no-cash bids at...

Land bank Every person who lives in Chicago knows that while it is important to plan big, the future of Chicago will be made or lost in the 100-plus (depends whom you ask) neighborhoods that we call home. As a commissioner on the Cook County Board, my focus on the future of our city has been to combat foreclosures and the vacant homes and land that are undermining the stability of and vitality of communities. This is why, with the help of my colleagues and the Cook County Board president,...

The worst repercussions of the housing crisis are apparently behind us, at least in some communities. Fewer homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Many are still underwater but have a sense, at least, that they're catching up. Home sales in some neighborhoods have been remarkably brisk. But some of the Chicago area's most struggling neighborhoods were devastated by the collapse in home prices, and they're a long, long way from recovering. Blocks of empty...

The worst repercussions of the housing crisis are apparently behind us, at least in some communities. Fewer homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Many are still underwater but have a sense, at least, that they're catching up. Home sales in some neighborhoods have been remarkably brisk. But some of the Chicago area's most struggling neighborhoods were devastated by the collapse in home prices, and they're a long, long way from recovering. Blocks of empty...

After two years of discussion, the Cook County Board last week approved the creation of a countywide land bank. Now the real work begins for the land bank, which will accumulate unproductive properties, maintain them and hold them tax-free until agreed-upon redevelopment plans are formed. It could be the nation's largest in terms of geography. The to-do list is long before that process can begin: A board has to be selected that will represent various constituencies. A...

Fifty-four nonprofit groups and agencies trying to help homeowners and reverse the blight left in the wake of the foreclosure crisis will share $70 million provided by the nation's five largest lenders. The monies are what remains of Illinois' portion of the $25 billion national foreclosure settlement that state attorneys general, federal authorities and the five banks negotiated in February 2012. Announced Wednesday morning by Illinois Attorney General Lisa...

With a local township's open-space drive momentarily stalled, the Barrington Area Council of Governments is pressing forward with a possible referendum next November to decide whether it should get into the conservation business by setting up a land banking operation. The council has directed a committee to come up with a way that land banking, which protects natural areas from development, could be implemented and to consider possible wording for an advisory referendum on the issue.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's government will renew a push for consolidation of major state-linked banks to streamline an overcrowded financial sector and it is considering allowing companies to issue Taiwan dollar and yuan dual-currency shares, a minister said on Friday. Schive Chi, a minister without portfolio, who spoke to Reuters in his first interview with foreign media since being appointed in February, said the cabinet would push ahead to consolidate Bank of Taiwan,...

In the mid-1990s, when officials decided to establish a land-bank program in Houston, the Third Ward seemed an ideal laboratory for the city's newest experiment in urban redevelopment. Crumbling, abandoned houses and overgrown vacant lots with decades-long tax delinquencies were abundant in the neighborhood southeast of downtown. City planners imagined transforming this blight into affordable housing, revitalized communities and a stronger city tax base. The land bank...

Leaders of St. Francis High School in Wheaton are hitting what appears to be a brick wall in their efforts to persuade the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County to sell several acres from an adjoining preserve so the school can expand its parking lot. School officials are seeking about two acres from the 121-acre Belleau Woods Forest Preserve, directly west of St. Francis' 23-acre campus, to expand parking by about 175 spaces. That would eliminate the need for some...

The name Roderick D. Parker hardly packs the historic punch of village pioneer Pierce Downer, or even that of Lottie Holman O'Neill, the Downers Grove native who struck a statewide blow for feminism in 1922 as the first woman elected to the Illinois legislature. But to local history buff John Przybyl and several hundred members of a grass-roots group known as Citizens for Responsible Development, the former Civil War drummer boy looms large in Downers Grove's history--so large that they want his...

After two years of discussion, the Cook County Board last week approved the creation of a countywide land bank. Now the real work begins for the land bank, which will accumulate unproductive properties, maintain them and hold them tax-free until agreed-upon redevelopment plans are formed. It could be the nation's largest in terms of geography. The to-do list is long before that process can begin: A board has to be selected that will represent various constituencies. A...

Most Barrington-area officials are voicing tentative support for a proposed land-bank commission to preserve natural areas, although it might entail a real estate transfer tax of $2,000 for every $100,000 of a home's sale price. The tax, needed to raise money to buy the natural areas, would be the highest of its kind in Illinois. That made it the most controversial item in a report submitted last week to the Barrington Area Council of Governments by the organization's land...

A proposed ordinance that would create a land bank in Cook County received a broad base of support at a public hearing Tuesday, though community groups and residents expressed the desire for their voices to be heard in any redevelopment plans. If approved Wednesday by the Cook County Board, the Cook County Land Bank would be the largest land bank in the nation, in terms of geography. Its creation is considered the next step in addressing the foreclosure crisis, and numerous...